Causas y consecuencias de la pirateria

Ba‛al (Biblical Hebrew בעל, pronounced [ˈbaʕal], also spelled Baal in English) is a Northwest Semitic title and honorific meaning "master" or "lord"[1] that is used for various gods who were patronsof cities in the Levant, cognate to Akkadian Bēlu. A Baalist or Baalite means a worshipper of Baal.
"Ba‛al" can refer to any god and even to human officials; in some texts it is used as a substitutefor Hadad, a god of the rain, thunder, fertility and agriculture, and the lord of Heaven. Since only priests were allowed to utter his divine name, Hadad, Ba‛al was commonly used. Nevertheless, few ifany Biblical uses of "Ba‛al" refer to Hadad, the lord over the assembly of gods on the holy mount of Heaven, but rather refer to any number of local spirit-deities worshipped as cult images, eachcalled ba‛al and regarded in the Hebrew Bible in that context as a false god.

Etymology

Baʿal, (bāʾ-ʿayn-lām), is a Semitic word signifying "The Lord, master, owner (male), keeper,husband".[citation needed] Cognates include Standard Hebrew (Bet-Ayin-Lamed; בַּעַל / בָּעַל, Báʕal, Akkadian Bēl and Arabic بعل. The feminine form is Baʕalat (Hebrew בַּעֲלָה Baʕalah, Arabic بعلـة baʕalah)signifying "lady, mistress, owner (female), wife".
The words themselves had no exclusively religious connotation, they are a honorific title for heads of households or master craftsmen, but not for royalty.The meaning of "lord" as a member of royalty or nobility is more accurately translated as Adon in Semitic.
"Ba'al ul bayt" in modern Levantine Arabic is widely used to mean the head of the household,literally 'Master of the House' and has a somewhat jocular, semi-mocking connotation.[citation needed] In modern Levantine Arabic, the word Báʕal serves as an adjective describing farming that relyonly on rainwater as a source of irrigation. Probably it is the last remnant of the sense of Baal the god in the minds of the people of the region. In Amharic, the Semitic word for "owner" or...